| Abstrakt: |
Background: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways. Various tests and questionnaires are designed to monitor the severity of asthma and help the therapist and the health system prescribe the best treatment to control it. This study was designed to compare two methods Asthma Control Questionnaires (ACQ) and Asthma Control test-child (ACT-CHILD) in children with asthma. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 92 children with asthma referred to the Taleghani hospital, Gorgan, in 2022-2023. Patients were in a range of age 4-16 years. Asthma control was evaluated and compared by two methods ACT-CHILD and ACQ. ACT-CHILD included one version for 4-11-year patients completed by their parents and another one for 12-16 –year patients completed by the patients. The clinical symptoms, age, gender and the parents' records related to asthma were completed during the clinical interview. Data was analyzed using Chi-square and Spearman correlation tests. The degree of agreement between two questionnaires was determined using the Kappa coefficient. Results: 84 children aged 4-11 years (91.3%) and 8 children aged 12-16 years (8.7%) were included in the study. According to the ACT-CHILD, 40.2% of children (n=37) had controlled asthma, 44.6% (n=41) had partially controlled asthma, and 15.2% (n=14) had uncontrolled asthma. Based on the ACQ, controlled asthma was observed in 18.5% (n=17), partially controlled asthma in 35.8% (n=33), and uncontrolled asthma in 45.7% (n=42) of children. Asthma control results based on two questionnaires were significantly different from each other (P<0.001). The agreement between the ACTCHILD and ACQ methods in evaluating children's asthma was at a weak level (P=0.014, κ=0.157), however, a significant negative correlation was observed between the scores of the ACT-CHILD and ACQ questionnaires (r=-0.588, P>0.001) which after categorizing based on age group, this correlation was confirmed only in children aged 4-11 years (r=-0.627, P>0.001). Conclusion: Our findings showed that there is a poor agreement between ACT-CHILD and ACQ results in the assessment of asthma control. Further studies are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
